Baseball Heaven: Up Close and Personal, What It Was Really Like in the Major Leagues

by Peter Golenbock, Robert Lipsyte (Foreword by)

Overview

“With its personal feel and near-mystical quality, this highly recommended work will mesmerize baseball lovers and casual fans.” Library Journal, Starred Review

A behind-the-scenes look at baseball history, as told through timeless interviews with major leaguers

For fifty years, bestselling author Peter Golenbock has been interviewing some of the most fascinating figures in baseball. Their conversations are a journey back in time to the days of Ruth and Gehrig, Gehringer and Greenberg, Robinson and Reese, and Howard and Mantle, as they reflect on the sport’s greatest moments and biggest issues.

In Baseball Heaven, Golenbock brings together for the first time the most historic and captivating of these conversations. The stories range from Elden Auker remembering the day Lou Gehrig told him he was sick to Albert Happy Chandler reflecting on his decision to allow Jackie Robinson into the big leagues, from Ralph Branca discussing the home run he gave up that cost the Dodgers the pennant to Del Webb talking about why he hired Casey Stengel and why he fired him.

Baseball Heaven is baseball history at its very best. It pulls back the curtain on the major leagues to reveal inside stories, intimate reminiscences, and the friendships and rivalries that make baseball America’s Game.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538181829
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/05/2024
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Peter Golenbock has written more than sixty books, including ten New York Times best sellers. His books on baseball include Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964; The Bronx Zoo (with Sparky Lyle); Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers; Balls (with Graig Nettles); Amazin’: The Miraculous History of New York’s Most Beloved Baseball Team; and Whispers of the Gods: Tales from Baseball’s Golden Age, Told by the Men Who Played It. He resides in St. Petersburg, FL.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Elston Howard, Chapter 12

Q: Why did you choose to play professional baseball over going to college?

A: My parents were educators. My father was a principal down in New Madrid, Missouri, at the O’Bannon High School. My mother was a dietician for many years, and they wanted me to go to college. I went to

Stowe, a teacher’s college, a little school in St. Louis, but I dropped out and started playing professional baseball.

I went into the black leagues. I played with the Kansas City Monarchs. Ernie Banks was my roommate. We won the Negro American League, which was big in black baseball. Today we have many black stars in the major leagues. It wasn’t that way then.

When I came in, there were still racial barriers. We couldn’t live in the same hotel with the white ballplayers. We’d go down to spring training in St. Petersburg, and we would stay with a private family. We stayed with Del Williams, who had a shoe repair shop. The food was great. His wife used to fix us real good food. Bob Gibson, Bill White, and Sam Jones used to stay at their home. They were playing with the Cardinals.

At the time I was the only black member with the Yankees.

We had a rough time during spring training. Camp would break for the day, and you had to cross the tracks into the black section to dress, while the white boys would go to the hotel and dress. They’d jump on the bus, while I had to jump in a cab with my uniform and come to the ballpark and go back and then jump back on the train, see.

Q: Didn’t this make you angry?

A: Oh yeah. Being a young man, I was really upset at it. The only time I would get really upset was when you’d hear racial remarks. In those days you heard a lot of racial remarks, and I still get mad today when I hear it.

I get offended by it, and if a guy gets on me about it, I go right after him.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: Elden Auker: “I’d like to see you throw directly underhand.”

Chapter 2: Elden Auker: Ole Diz, Mickey Cochrane, and Hammering Hank

Chapter 3: Elden Auker: Joe Cronin Drives Him Crazy

Chapter 4: Johnny Pesky: Pesky Holds the Ball

Chapter 5: Albert Happy Chandler: “I will allow Jackie Robinson to play for Brooklyn”

Chapter 6: Del Webb: “Would you be interested in buying the Yankees?”

Chapter 7: Del Webb: Stengel and Weiss and Victory

Chapter 8: Ralph Branca: The Ace of the Staff

Chapter 9: Ralph Branca: The Shot Heard Round the World

Chapter 10: Bobby Thomson: The Shot Heard Round the World

Chapter 11: Donald Hall: My Love of the Brooklyn Dodgers

Chapter 12: Elston Howard: For the Yankees, the First

Chapter 13: Hot Rod Kanehl: Casey’s Pet

Chapter 14: Rod Kanehl: I Was an Original Met

Chapter 15: Dock Ellis: A Life on the Edge

Chapter 16: Dock Ellis: Cocaine and Yankee Turbulence

Chapter 17: Gary Carter: The Missing Ingredient

Chapter 18: Gary Carter: The Ball Goes Through Buckner’s Legs

Editorial Reviews

Baseball’s continued mythical appeal is only made possible by the many characters who have become central to the sport’s history. Golenbock has talked to more of these characters than almost anybody else. And by sharing some of their best stories in this book, he has provided us baseball fans a great gift. These stories provide fascinating color to the game’s key eras and moments: Ted Williams’ ascension to greatness, the launching of the second Yankee dynasty, the Shot Heard Round the World, and the 1969 Miracle Mets to name a few. But perhaps even more interestingly, these stories reveal what could have been. Commissioner Richard Nixon, anybody? Readers will learn something new on every page as they’re taken on a ride through baseball history that will leave them swearing they’re in Baseball Heaven.

Jacob Kornhauser

Here is Dock Ellis, famous for pitching a no-hitter while floating on LSD, years later terrified as a Senior League starter that his skills would desert him now that he was sober. Here are tales of Leo Durocher, all-star criminal who stole money and a watch from roommate Babe Ruth, and of Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler, who was actually a hero, run out of baseball as payback for his courage standing up to the owners’ vote to keep Jackie Robinson out of the major leagues. All of this and way more lies ahead in this wonderful mosaic of the game. (From the foreword)

Robert Lipsyte

This is the greatest baseball book I think I have ever read. What makes it great is the style, the interviews, and I must admit, I am a little jealous because I have known some outstanding interviewers but Peter Golenbock has managed to show the interview as an art form. This is a book that, yes, is like heaven, because of all the golden nuggets about baseball, but Peter has also given us an insight into his genius as an interviewer. Magnifique!

Tony Castro

In Baseball Heaven, Peter Golenbock gives us a wonderful book of interviews with ballplayers that transports us back to another era. Nobody does it better than he does.

Ron Rapoport

Aside from being the same age and sharing the same first name, Peter and I share a passion for the game of baseball. He took his passion to another level and, over the past 50 years, has produced some of the game’s greatest books. His latest, Baseball Heaven, is no exception. Peter has the uncanny knack of drawing out intimate details from some of Major League Baseball’s most interesting characters. If you love the history of baseball as I do, this is a must-read!

Peter Nasca